DPhil, Brasenose College, University of Oxford
MSt, University of Oxford
B.A., Stanford University

Appointed 2016, Program in Art History

Bio

Alexandra Sofroniew specializes in ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan art, the history and archaeology of pre-Roman Italy and Sicily, and the material culture of ancient religions. A classical archaeologist and museum curator by training, she has excavated in Sicily and central Italy and was assistant curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and exhibition curator at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. She has worked on diverse aspects of ancient Mediterranean art and culture, from underwater archaeology around Sicily to early votive dedications and Roman domestic religion. Her first book is Household Gods. Private Devotion in Ancient Greece and Rome.

Seminars

Museum Training: Exhibition Methods: what is a museum exhibition? Who decides what story to tell and which objects to display? This seminar explores questions of audience, interpretation, visitor engagement and ethics of display as well as the practicalities of the process from crafting an exhibition proposal through to design and content development.

The Ancient Artist: investigates the concept of the artist in ancient Greece and Rome, where most artworks were made by anonymous craftsmen. Uses examples from sculpture, vase-painting, mosaics, gems, coins and buildings to explore the lives and status of ancient artists, including the famous few whose names have survived to us today. What does it mean to sign one’s work?

Publications

“A Sicilian Odyssey. Behind the scenes of the Ashmolean’s extraordinary new exhibition Storms, War and Shipwrecks: Treasures from the Sicilian Seas,” in ARA News, The Association for Roman Archaeology, 35, 2016, 3-7